Our Petey - Pit Bull Terrier

We're having serious trouble with our Petey. I posted this to his diary but wanted to see if any of you who own pit bulls can help us.

We recently got two horses and Petey seems ok when we aren't around them and will even walk through the pasture without looking at them. But whenever we are working with the horses, he barks and goes to attack them. We have tried to desensitize him with getting him GRADUALLY closer on a leash, etc. He hasn't been listening to us and our verbal commands AT ALL and is really behaving badly. If we try to catch him so he doesn't get himself killed, he runs away.

I don't know what we can do with him. Just when we think we've made progress, he attacks the horses again. Maybe it's a pit bull thing that can't be corrected. We have had the horses five days now.

For example, this morning he was in the barn and the horses were in their stalls. They were eating and he left them alone. We praised him profusely and hoped that our problem was behind us. He was behaving well in the barn and leaving the horses alone.

The moment the horses were in the corral eating their hay, he went at the them again - primarily at their muzzle.

I don't know if the horses have to go or Petey has to go but we can't continue this way. He's either going to get killed by a kick or he is going to seriously injure the horses.

Perhaps we could just make him an "indoor" dog and walk him. That would make him miserable though. I don't see any other way.